The World That Was Mine (Part I & II)

Part II: XII

"She was good," Logan added. "She and I got along really well. She liked comics too, and she watched movies like I did and she...she was...good. She was good."

I nodded slowly in agreement. Good. That was an okay way to describe her. Good. I could accept that truth in her image.

"We didn't know much about her life here. She wouldn't talk about it, really," Tyler was the next to speak after yet another heavy beat of silence that filled the room from ceiling to floor. The noise didn't do much to help it. "I knew she was from Georgia. I knew she lived with her mom. I knew she'd grown up mostly as an only child."

Logan sighed. "She was scarce with the information while she was here. She only really said what she needed to."

"Did she ever talk about me?" I already knew the answer. The writing had been on the wall since the start of this, but the question begged to be asked anyway. I wanted to hear it out loud. I needed to. Logan and Tyler shared al, obviously debating how they wanted to answer. Part of me hoped they would lie. I wasn't sure I could handle the truth. Tyler took a deep breath and shook his head slowly.

"No, she uh, she didn't talk about you, Iz."

"Why?" I asked without hesitation.

Tyler shrugged his shoulders with a tight expression on his face. "I have no idea. I-I can't think of why she wouldn't have mentioned you, I mean she must have-" He paused.

A wave of unpleasant realization washed over me as I realized what he was saying. What he seemed to have realized too. She must have known. There was no way she couldn't have. She'd known my twin. She'd known and lived with the other half of my DNA, and all the other counterparts that made up my family. She'd seen us, seen them, and there was no chance someone as smart as Marley would have missed the similarity.

That, and I was sure my mother had told her. They'd been close, my mom and Marley. Marley had always condemned my mother for the way she treated me, but for some reason, I could never understand, she'd also admired my mother. Talked to her and relied on her like I was never able to. They talked about everything. She used to brag jokingly that she knew more about me than I did. But now, it never felt less like a joke. She knew. There was no doubt in my mind that she knew. And the realization hurt more than what I knew what to do with.

"She must have known," Tyler finished his sentence. "She must have."

He said the last part quietly like he didn't want to believe that she'd kept something like that to herself either.

Logan shook his head. "N-no, she didn't-she couldn't,"

She did. She could. I knew better than to say she'd never lie. I just thought she'd never lie to me. No one said anything for a long while after that. The world seemed to hold still, and if it weren't for the loud ticking of a clock somewhere in the room and the faint sound of people talking on the sidewalk below, I would have thought that time itself was holding still. She could. She would. She did. The truths were getting harder to swallow by the second.

"Izzy, is there anything else you'd like to know right now? Or should we take a break?" Tyler was vying for option 2, and for once, he and I agreed.

I didn't want any more truths. Couldn't stomach any. Not even if I wanted to. I wished then that I'd stayed in the dark. I wished I hadn't wanted to know. I wished I hadn't asked, and I wished I hadn't pressed. It was only me who ever got hurt.

Only me. Only ever me no matter what I did. The truth was detrimental. The truth was poison. The truth was so painful it was utterly debilitating. And it was also so, incredibly, undeniably inescapable.